When should we start social media marketing?

Recently on MarketingSherpa, this question was posed in an article (Full link here):
When should we start with social media marketing?

Their response follows:

Social media is a powerful channel, but it works in conjunction with other efforts, such as email. You should get your email marketing tactics nailed down first, before you make a big social media push.

Here’s why: Engaging with customers and prospects through social media is another channel for two-way communications, like email. A well-developed email program can help you learn important things about your communication strategy, such as:

• What types of content resonate with your audience
• How frequently they want to hear from you
• How to segment your audience to deliver relevant messages
• How to convert visitors into subscribers who want an ongoing relationship with your brand

I’d like to add:

Before doing the above, make sure you have the infrastructure in place to handle a two-way conversation.

If you open a dialogue by sending an email, it’s important to have measures in place to keep up your end of the discussion. This means assigning someone to check the inbox of the reply-to address on your emails. It’s important to remember that someone may reply to your message with a question or solicitation for more information. Having an email like that go unanswered is a surefire way to lose a customer and inspire bad word of mouth.

The exception to the above is transactional emails. In those messages, be sure to include something like the following in your footer that’s linked to the page on your website with contact information:

Please don't reply to this email. We don't monitor this email address and won't be able to reply to email sent to it. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.

Above all, ask yourself, “Why are we doing this?”

If the answer is, “Because everyone’s talking about Twitter so we may as well do it” then you need to re-think your plan. Email is a great way to stay in touch with your constituents. Shore up the points above and you’ll be well on your way to having an email program in place that will complement your social media strategy.

Don't abuse their trust

I thought I'd mentioned on my blog the importance of not taking your list's subscribers for granted, but a search didn't turn up any results on the topic. Shame on me. Guess I'm the one doing the "taking for granted" and should not assume everyone knows that.

Reading this post on Andy Sernovitz's "Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That" blog reminded me of the unique fact that email is the only form of "advertising" that people specifically ask to receive. It's so easy to create and send that it's easy to forget that your spot in your recipients' inbox isn't a right, it's a privilege. Your recipients may have asked for your communications, but only under the parameters you set forth on your sign-up page (i.e. the content and frequency you promoted).

But if you live up to the promise you made to your recipients from the get-go when they gave you their permission to send them your newsletters, you should have a long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationship with an attentive audience. What could be better than that?!

Ask more than "So, what's your address?"

Ah, the old quantity vs. quality debate. Many folks ask themselves, “Do I want a large list or an active list?” Since I am not a mind reader, there’s no way I am going to attempt to answer that for you. But for the sake of having something for you to read, let’s discuss having an active list. One way to do that would be segment your list based upon their zip code, birthday or some other demographic information. The more relevant the information a recipient receives, the more likely they are to be engaged with the messages they receive.

Here are some steps to using segmented information:

Step 1: Ask for this information on your email sign-up page.

Before you add questions willy nilly, ask yourself what the most meaningful information is to have to market your goods or services. I met someone who sold infant clothing adorned with logos of U.S. colleges and it hadn’t occurred to him to ask for the child’s birth date to send information to parents specific to their child’s size. Think beyond basic snail mail address information.

OK, that’s swell and groovy, but what if you’re thinking, “I’ve already collected 3,245 email addresses? How do I go back and add more information about these folks?”

I’m glad you asked!

Step 2: Asking for information retroactively to segment contacts already on your list.

This MailChimp blog post has a lot of great ideas for adding information organically. The idea detailed in this post is to tell list contacts that you’re having a random drawing and will send the winner a free prize if they enter more information about themselves into your database. Create a reason for your contacts to come back to your site and tell you more about themselves.

Step 3: Creating a way for list members to update their information – preference center

Sometimes called a sign-up form, a preference center is a web page that allows your contacts to tell you more about themselves and which of your offerings they want to receive. The Musician’s Friend offers this preference center that asks for information about the contact, including birthday.

And here’s an example from Rocket Software that gives an explanation for each of their newsletters.

Step 4: Be sure your preference center is set up to allow contacts to log in and make changes. All of the above is great for collecting information up-front, but enabling contacts to retroactively update their profiles is critical. If you’re going to send out a note to your list to ask recipients to come back to your site to update their profiles (like the idea mentioned in Step 2), be sure you have a way for them to do this. It may be called an “Update Profile Form” by some email service providers (ESP). No matter the name, this is a function your ESP should offer.

Now that you've gone through the process of learning more about the folks you're emailing, be sure to tailor your content to your audience's specific interests.